Julian Mazur Round 2 Games

Round 2 of the Julian Mazur Memorial was interrupted by the most horrendous, deafening sound of road works on the motorway, like a wounded dragon being assailed by a thousand teachers with blackboards and chalk. As a result of this, at least one game was terminated early, that between Bill Forster and Peter Stoeveken, agreed a draw so the protagonists could flee to the aural safety of their respective suburbs. It would probably have been a draw anyway.
Notwithstanding this, there was some awfully exciting chess being played, and some upsets too! In fact, apart from my own game which was rubbish, I enjoyed all the games I played through at the weekend. Top of the list is Mike Roberts' brilliant victory over Ross Jackson, although he did miss a mate in four in the later stages of the game. Andrew Brockway returned to his best form by beating Mark Wilkins after the latter misplayed the endgame. Our talented 11 year old Layla Timergazi is improving constantly, and this time had no problem drawing with Alan Aldridge, after her loss to him in the Club Championship just a few weeks ago. Relative newcomer Alex Johnson's wild and highly entertaining style yielded a significant scalp in C grade club champion John Cook -  Alex must be competing with Layla for the title of fastest improving player. Russell Dive and Brian Nijman both seem to be struggling with their form at the moment, but both scraped wins against much lower rated opposition All credit to Andrew Stone and Dylan Frater respectively for making them work so hard.